I was expecting Garbiñe Muguruza to pull out of Beijing with the ankle injury that caused her to retire from the Wuhan final. A couple of days rest though has been enough for Muguruza to recover and win two matches in Beijing to reach the quarter-finals. By virtue of a lopsided three set victory over Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, Muguruza also secured her place in the top eight for singles in Singapore. Muguruza joins Simona Halep and Maria Sharapova as confirmed players at the WTA Finals and should soon be joined by Petra Kvitova who looks to have all but sealed her spot as well.

It was an eventful day for Muguruza who also celebrated her birthday! The Spaniard was given a present on court after her win over Lucic-Baroni…

The match hadn’t started well with Muguruza unleashing a violent attack on her racquet. This was up there in the racquet smash awards for 2015!

Muguruza recovered from a 6-1 first set blowout to book her spot in the quarter-finals where she will play Bethanie Mattek-Sands.

The American player defeated Roberta Vinci in three sets and will move up into the world’s top 65 and perhaps higher, if she keeps winning. It’s been a long road for Beth who ended 2014 at world number 175 due to a long spell on the sidelines, but she’s finally got a big break at a big tournament and ran with it. Muguruza could crack the world’s top four if results go her way this week. However, qualifying for Singapore was surely the main task of the week and that’s been achieved. I wonder whether she will go all out to win Beijing or take her foot off the gas. I’d actually give BMS a fair shot at the upset win.